Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

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EVENTS

Gingrich: Wrong Again

Newt Gingrich says he will repeal the Dodd/Frank bill, an incredibly weak set of regulations that has done almost nothing to solve the systemic problems in our financial system, because it’s destroying community banks (banks with under a billion dollars in assets). And by destroying them, he means they’ve doubled their earnings.

“Community banks are 12 percent of the banks right now and 40 percent of the loans to small business,” Gingrich said. “And they are being destroyed by Dodd-Frank.”…

The first thing to note is that one year after the passage of Dodd-Frank, community banks are healthier. By convention, any bank with assets of less than $1 billion is a community bank. According to the latest report from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, for that group of banks, a key measure of profitability, return on assets, has doubled in the past year, growing from 0.26 percent a year ago to 0.57 percent in the second quarter of 2011. Return on assets has been higher this year than in any quarter going back to the start of 2008 before the great meltdown.

So when his campaign was asked to provide evidence for this claim, here was their response:

We asked the Gingrich campaign to give us the data that informed the former House speaker’s belief. Staffer R.C. Hammond replied “It was his observation. How do you source an opinion?”

Obviously it wasn’t intended to be a factual statement. That explains all the percentages and stuff.

Obviously it wasn’t intended to be a factual statement. That explains all the percentages and stuff.

Oh no, it was intended to be a factual statement, just the conservative way, where you work your way to the facts starting from your dogma. Everyone knows regulation is always bad, so the Dodd/Frank bill must have had negative effects on community banks. No evidence of that outcome is needed, as it follows logically from the first assumption.

No evidence of that outcome is needed, as it follows logically from the first assumption.

Exactly. In republicanworld, everything is an opinion. If 2+2=5 served republican interests, they would be out there insisting that was the answer. Even if you showed them a clip involving Cookie Monster illustrating with a plate of cookies that 2+2=4, they’d just dismiss that as “your opinion”.

So – the effect of these regulations is to benefit those who have invested in those banks with a view to the long haul while naking thme less attractive to those who simply want to gut them for short-term windfalls.